Over a hundred community members gathered outside the Army Corps of Engineers offices near the Coralville Dam as part of a National Day of Action in opposition to the Dakota Access Pipeline. People of all ages held signs and voiced their concerns about the use of eminent domain and the pipeline’s impact on the environment and drinking water to Army Corps of Engineers rangers Doug Vogel and Jeff Peck.
Iowa City resident Nancy Jean Smith discussed the pipeline’s impact on the indigenous people of North Dakota.
“When the public around Bismark found out the pipeline was going to be near them, the powers that be re-routed that line close to the reservation,” she said.
These sentiments are echoed in a letter that is being signed and sent to the Army Corps of Engineers offices in Rock Island and Omaha, as well as the headquarters in Washington D.C. and to President Obama.
We the people of Iowa, call for a halt to construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline threatening clean water sources to the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation, to Iowans and to millions of others as it passes near the Jordan Aquifer, through the Des Moines, Missouri and Mississippi Rivers, and other wetlands and waterways.
We stand with residents of Standing Rock in North Dakota, knowing the pipeline disturbs scared sites, infringes on past treaty promises and tribal sovereignty; knowing that it was planned and constructed without consideration or meaningful consultation of the Great Sioux Nation. This is wrong!
It is wrong to consider profits for private corporations before the needs of millions of people for clean drinking water, for farming and ranch lands. It was wrong to fast track the process, treating a 1,200 mile pipeline as a series of small construction sites, exempt from comprehensive reviews required by the Clean Water and National Environmental Policy Acts.
We the people, call on the Army Corps of Engineers to act in the best interests of the majority of citizens by protecting our water and soil, rather than the interests of a few for financial gain. We call on the Army Corps to revoke permits and end construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline immediately!
